For most of my life, I believed I was different, broken, and never enough. Alcohol offered temporary relief from that feeling. Recovery helped me understand that I had always possessed what I needed.
The Fear of Running Out
I always feared running out of liquor. That fear followed me on this particular day in my drinking career.
There were bottles scattered here and there. Some were empty, and at least one was half-full. At the time, I did not realize that I was entering a new phase of addiction, one that would bring me to my lowest depths.
There should have been enough alcohol to last the day.
By then, however, I no longer tried to resist the siren call of drinking. I had lost so much. I was alone, and I planned to remain intoxicated forever.
I did not know how long forever would last, but I had no time at all for sobriety.
It was probably late afternoon, although I do not remember many of the details. After surveying my supply, I decided that I did not have enough.
So I dragged myself out to buy more.
It did not matter when I had last washed, what clothes I was wearing, or whether I was coherent enough to drive. After I purchased more alcohol, the police intervened and brought my plan for forever to an abrupt end.
Surrounding myself with bottles of strong liquor was my attempt to feel safe and secure. It never worked.
Still, this episode, despite its enormous consequences, was far from the first time I had felt that something was missing.
Growing Up Feeling Different
As a child, I secretly believed that I must have been conceived by mistake. I felt like a malfunctioning creation who could not blend in with the other boys and girls.
In my native Alabama, there was a clear definition of boyhood and manhood. Boys were expected to fish, hunt, play sports, and get a little rowdy.
I was a sensitive soul, often lost in my private reflections about the world. To say that I was different from the boys around me would be an understatement.
Football held no interest for me. Nor could I bring myself to shoot and kill animals, as was common where I grew up.
Because of these differences, I began to believe that I was never enough. I hoped other people would not notice what I saw as my obvious shortcomings.
I became a lonely person, separated from nearly everyone else in my small-town world.
In fact, remaining distant from others became a theme throughout my life.
Belonging is important, especially to a young person who already feels caught between worlds. Yet throughout childhood, young adulthood, and even later in life, I rarely felt like a full participant in any social group.
I was not an athlete or a rebel. I did not earn the best grades in high school, either.
Later, I discovered that graduate school in history suited me well. Even then, I never thought of myself as being as intelligent as the professors who surrounded me during my career as a college teacher.
I imagined that they had grown up in homes filled with books and had traveled widely. I came from a blue-collar family, never considered myself cosmopolitan, and hated traveling by airplane.
Once again, I felt as though everyone else possessed something I lacked.
Alcohol Addiction and Mental Health
I lived with depression, anxiety, and probably other undiagnosed conditions. I have also researched autism and recognize many of its traits in myself.
These mental health struggles intensified my fears. At the same time, having names for my sadness and anxiety eventually helped me understand experiences that had always felt mysterious.
My journey toward better mental health took many twists and turns. For most of my life, I remained untreated.
Only now can I look back at my most troubled years with the perspective and tools that mental health treatment gave me.
Even today, another fear remains: the feeling that there is never enough time.
Part of me still wishes for a time machine. I imagine traveling back and living the life that I believe was once there for the taking.
The fun of college life, including dating and parties, largely passed me by. At the time, I was doing my best simply to hold on, attend classes, and avoid a nervous breakdown.
Now, in middle age, I want to do everything that once seemed impossibly difficult.
I want to reclaim all the days I spent intoxicated. I want back the mornings when I woke without knowing what had happened, where I had been, or even what day it was.
But sometimes I fear that I am too late.
My thirties passed as though the entire decade lasted only a week or two. Alcohol erased many of the memories that should have filled those years.
My addiction developed later in life. I believe it was partly a response to all those years of not belonging and never finding an identity that felt right.
Alcohol became my medicine for everything that hurt.
Perhaps that medicine would have arrived in another form. In my life, it happened to take the shape of a bottle.
The Arrest That Changed My Life
The day I was arrested sent me on a journey that began in jail but eventually led to quiet, sober reflection.
Those reflections helped me build a lasting defense against alcohol.
Most of the worst days are now foggy in my mind for obvious reasons. What I do remember is searching for the greatest high alcohol could provide.
I wanted to set records for drunkenness. Perhaps I did.
Mental health treatment was not where I wanted to be, but it became necessary. It allowed me to begin taking my first real steps away from alcohol.
Something important happened there.
For the first time, I was able to sit quietly with my thoughts. I could observe them without judgment and without urgent responsibilities pressing down on me.
Eventually, I reached a conclusion that had once seemed impossible:
I was not a broken person. I had something meaningful to offer the world.
I never held a funeral to mark the end of my drinking career. Still, quitting felt much like a death, with all the complications of losing someone you both love and despise.
I almost said that I hated alcohol. But honestly, I do not think I could ever say that I truly hated it.
Why I Cannot Declare Victory Over Alcohol
I still have to live with the possibility that drinking could return.
Alcohol and I have been best friends, enemies, and estranged acquaintances. Because of that complicated relationship, I remain wary of declaring a formal victory.
For me, life itself can be a trigger.
The solitude and despair of my drinking years have not disappeared completely. I am still a loner. I avoid empty conversations and the social posturing that often replaces honest exchanges and depth of character.
I cannot run from who I am.
My sensitivity and loneliness make me especially vulnerable to alcohol addiction. There is no reason to pretend otherwise.
That is why I cannot arrange a funeral for drinking and convince myself that it is gone forever.
Recovery requires awareness. It also requires courage.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is choosing to do something difficult while fear remains beside you.
For me, courage means making a daily effort to resist something I once loved.
Realizing I Had Always Been Enough
Eventually, I realized that I had always possessed enough of what I truly needed.
That understanding came only after my arrest and the ordeal of mental health treatment.
I was unique, not broken.
Given my personality and preferences, perhaps not belonging was inevitable. I had spent years trying to fit into a culture that often felt completely opposed to who I was.
Why had I wanted so desperately to fit into it in the first place?
Five years have now passed since that quiet period of reflection. Today, I believe I am enough to continue on this healthier path.
Life and the threat of addiction no longer terrorize me every day. However, I respect what alcohol can do. I live with that awareness rather than trying to escape it.
Writing Saves My Life
These days, I feel safer surrounded by Word documents and writing websites than I ever felt surrounded by bottles.
It turns out that writing has always been something I was meant to do.
Writing satisfies my need to create. More importantly, it gives the feelings inside me somewhere to go.
Through writing, I can release the tension I once tried to silence with alcohol.
Writing saves my life every day because it helps drown out the voices that continue to ask whether I will ever be enough.
Now, I finally know how to answer them.
I was always enough.
Have You Ever Felt Like You Were Not Enough?
Feelings of loneliness, difference, and inadequacy can follow us into addiction and recovery. Share your experience in the comments. Your story may help someone else feel understood.
Strawbridge has taught at the college level for many years after earning his Ph.D. in History. He has personal experience with both mental illness and addiction and speaks to groups on a variety of related topics. He is the author of My Own Ashes: A Hero’s Journey With Mental Illness and Addiction. You can find his newsletter at The Mind-Soul Sanctum.
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